Ex-instructor at Diablo Valley College arraigned over Berkeley Trump protest

A former instructor at Diablo Valley College has been arrested over an attack at a clash between supporters and opponents of President Trump in Berkeley this spring.

A former instructor at Diablo Valley College has been arrested over an attack at a clash between supporters and opponents of President Trump in Berkeley this spring.

Photo: JOSH EDELSON, AFP/Getty Images

Photo: JOSH EDELSON, AFP/Getty Images

Image
1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

A former instructor at Diablo Valley College has been arrested over an attack at a clash between supporters and opponents of President Trump in Berkeley this spring.

A former instructor at Diablo Valley College has been arrested over an attack at a clash between supporters and opponents of President Trump in Berkeley this spring.

Photo: JOSH EDELSON, AFP/Getty Images

Ex-instructor at Diablo Valley College arraigned over Berkeley Trump protest

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

A 28-year-old former Contra Costa County community college professor was arraigned Friday morning after allegedly assaulting at least seven people with a bike lock at an April clash between Trump supporters and counterprotesters in Berkeley.

Eric Clanton was arrested at his Oakland apartment at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday and booked into Berkeley Jail that evening on three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of wearing a mask or disguise to evade police, and a sentencing enhancement for causing great bodily injury, according to county records.

Uncovering Clanton’s identity became a minor obsession in some internet circles after video surfaced of a man — now believed by many to be Clanton — beating a Trump supporter in the back of the head during the April 15 melee at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in which at least 20 people were arrested.

In a YouTube video of the attack, a masked person in a black hoodie can be seen emerging from a crowd and walloping an unarmed man on the head, drawing blood.

One of the wounds inflicted by the bike lock needed five staples to be closed, according to Berkeley Police Officer Andres Bejarano.

In another case, Bejarano wrote, Clanton struck a person wearing a helmet hard enough with the lock that a piece of the helmet was broken off.

At Clanton’s apartment, detectives found flags, pamphlets and other paraphernalia “associating Clanton with the Anti-Fascists and Anarchy political groups,” as well as U-locks and facial coverings like those worn during the April 15 assaults, according to Bejarano.

Clanton was an adjunct professor of philosophy at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill in 2016, but the college released a statement Friday saying that he is not employed by Diablo Valley or by the Contra Costa Community College District.

Clanton last worked at the college in December, according to the statement. He was arrested during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in 2014 on public nuisance and soliciting charges, police said.

He remains in custody at the Berkeley Jail and is next scheduled to appear in court on June 14 for a pretrial hearing, according to jail records. His bail is set at $100,000.